This thesis argues that ijime (bullying) is a product of the regimented culture of the Japanese education system, which place a heavy emphasis on conformity. It also argues that addressing the problem of ijime requires a reculturing of Japanese schools. The thesis highlights Japan’s long battle against ijime, which is a consequence of the unremitting drive to educate suitable Japanese citizens. The thesis investigates the characteristics of Japanese education, which is based on a national form of meritocracy and egalitarianism, to find if there is evidence that Japanese schools systematically legitimise oppression of those who do not conform. It examines the socio-historical development of ijime, revealing the serious extent to which the problem has become inherent in Japanese society, leaving little prospect for significant improvement. The five major ijime-suicide incidents, Shikagawa in 1986; Ohkouchi, 1994; Ohno, 2000; Takigawa, 2005 and Mori, 2006, are also studied in order to show how ijime can escalate to a disturbing level and in some cases develops a criminal element. Ijime has become a major social problem over the past few decades in Japan, causing serious absenteeism and even suicides among school children. In response, the Japanese government introduced “relaxed education”, which reduces student workloads and provides diversity in learning. Within the schools, organisational support systems have also been developed to help students with problems. Despite these measures, ijime still regularly occurs and the number of those who find it difficult to go to school is increasing. There has been no indication of serious improvement. This thesis is partly based on an analysis of the views and experiences of Japanese students and teachers. The results indicate that Japanese students perform ijime to discipline nonconformists for the sake of providing order, and that teachers are involved in ijime either as direct or indirect initiators. Ijime has been, either intentionally or unintentionally, accepted by many some students and teachers. Moreover, the results show that many students target individuals to guarantee collective identity, implying that they need to participate in the collective act of ijime for their social survival at school. The Japanese school is shown to be one place where ijime is still accepted because it facilitates universal conformity and peer solidarity. The thesis identifies two major problems resulting from the group-oriented culture of Japanese education. One problem is that, despite its egalitarian educational policies, the Japanese school system has created a hierarchy among students, allowing conformists to punish or marginalise nonconformists. The other problem is that a heavy emphasis on group life at school to promote peer solidarity has augmented the risk of exclusion by students who maintain collective identity by alienating someone. The findings show that ijime has been promoted by the cultural values and goals of conformity, and that the problem of ijime will not be alleviated without changing the regimented system of Japanese schooling.

The objective of this thesis is to make a psychological analysis of the protagonist, Shouya Ishida, in director Naoko Yamada’s movie Koe no Katachi. 12-year-old Ishida bullies a deaf transfer student because he does not know how to communicate with her. At some point this goes too far, resulting in her transferring out again, leaving Ishida as the target of the bullying from his classmates. The now 17-year-old Ishida, remorseful and depressed, plans to take his own life. But after an encounter with the girl whom he once bullied, he has a change of heart and instead tries to repent for his actions. I studied how the bullying first began and how the effects of it impacted Ishida’s life later on. I also analysed his guilt, shame and uses of defence mechanisms. Finally, I investigated the act of forgiving oneself. This thesis concludes that defence mechanisms heavily influence Ishida’s actions, both as a child and as a teen. Additionally, how his guilt and shame play a large role in damaging his ability to form new relationships and forgive himself for his past actions.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-28T20:57:55Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Edna Tanaka.pdf: 449315 bytes, checksum: 62f7367fd5cd7ba8a76bf188a9a121f5 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2009-05-19 / Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico / The dekassegui is a long term discussing movement social phenomena and it is being target of many researches. Little by little, children that follow their parents became research theme as well, but the discussions are centered on those which are inserted on the japanese cultural context; there is no knowledge of any research about schooling way of returning children to Brazil. The propose of this research is studying the life story of a student, a dekassegui daughter, which returned to Brazil, on a theory perspective of Ciampa about identity constitution. The start step was identifying the registered at the Public State Scholl basic, of a Education Director, dekassegui s children, in order to qualifying the learning circumstances from the teachers, parents and/or responsible and students. From these surveys, a 11 years old student was chosen, registered at the third grade of State Scholl basic; all the difficulties faced by this child were ,,,,,, identified and studying all the identity transformations which occurred on these conditions, starting from the beginning of identity process is giving to the whole life. The qualificative approach was the option, using the life story in order to know the subject living, according to her own perspective, of her mother and teachers. Her experience as student in a japanese school é marked noticeable by the idiom difficulties and many problems, as a hardener bullying/ijime ( being attacked and humiliations), these situation lead the development of a timid and retracted player and health problems. On her returning to Brazil she meets at the public school a place which contributes that she tries metamorphose which make her stronger, changing in to a excellent student , to the teachers, a a friend to her friends, and above that recovering her health / O movimento dekassegui é um fenômeno social que há muito está em discussão e tem sido objeto de várias pesquisas. Aos poucos, as crianças que acompanharam os pais foram se tornando também tema de pesquisas, mas as discussões estão centralizadas naquelas que se encontram inseridas no contexto cultural japonês; não há conhecimento de pesquisas sobre o processo de escolarização das crianças que retornam ao Brasil. Esta pesquisa propõe-se a estudar a história de vida de uma aluna, filha de dekassegui, que retornou ao Brasil, na perspectiva teórica de Ciampa sobre a constituição da identidade. O passo inicial consistiu em identificar alunos do Ensino Fundamental matriculados na Rede Estadual de Ensino paulista, de uma Diretoria de Ensino, filhos de dekassegui, para caracterizar a situação de aprendizagem a partir de professores, pais e/ou responsáveis e próprios alunos. A partir desse levantamento, foi escolhida uma aluna, de 11 anos, matriculada na 3ª série do Ensino Fundamental; procurou-se identificar as dificuldades enfrentadas por essa criança e estudar as transformações identitárias que ocorreram nessas condições, partindo da concepção de que o processo de identidade se dá durante toda a vida. Optou-se pela abordagem qualitativa, utilizando-se do recurso da história de vida para se conhecer as vivências do sujeito, segundo sua própria perspectiva, de sua mãe e de suas professoras. Sua experiência como aluna numa escola japonesa é marcada pela dificuldade do idioma e vários problemas, com o agravante do bullying/ijime (agressões e humilhações), situação esta que a leva a desenvolver a personagem de aluna tímida e retraída e problemas de saúde. Em seu retorno ao Brasil encontra na escola pública um lugar de pertencimento que contribui para que ela vivencie metamorfoses que a fortalecem, transformando-se em boa aluna , para as professoras, e amiga , para as amigas, além de ter recobrado a saúde